Crist for governor? Not yet

Though former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was schmoozing Democrats in Ocala this weekend and pointing out differences he has with Gov. Rick Scott on education, he’s still not ready to announce for the office.

According to the Ocala Star Banner, Crist, would only say again that he is considering running for governor, but did not say when he’d make that call.

“I’m seriously considering it,” Crist said in response to questions if he was planning to run, according to the Star Banner’s Joe Callahan.

During the Marion County Democrats dinner, Crist was critical of Scott’s decision to cut education funding by $1 billion during his first year in office. Scott has since restored the funding, but Crist has been using those cuts still as evidence that Scott is not as committed to supporting education as he was. (Check out Callahan's full story here.)

“It’s nice to give people bonuses,” Crist said at that meeting. “It’s even nicer to be good to them every year.”

The Republican Party of Florida is making the case that Scott has been a big supporter of education, despite Crist’s shots. A spokeswoman for the RPOF said Scott has increased funding for K-12 education funding by over $2 billion over the last two years, set aside $480 million for teacher pay raises, and took steps to make college more affordable by challenging Florida colleges to offer bachelor's degrees for $10,000.

As for the budget cuts in the first year of his administration, the RPOF said the those cuts were a result of Crist artificially inflating the state education budget by accepting the federal stimulus money from President Barack Obama.

Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy Wallace has covered politics for more than 15 years.
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Last modified: September 10, 2013
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